


sometimes // NFWMB

by sambumblebee



Series: counting time [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angel Wings, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood, Blood and Gore, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, Established Relationship, False Memories, Flashbacks, Flying, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Memories, Mild Gore, Post-Canon, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protectiveness, Revenge, So many emotions, Sort Of, Swords, Trauma, Violence, War, Wings, it's a continuation of the last fic i posted, martyr type stuff idk, mildly inspired by hozier, mostly this is hurt comfort, tagging fics is HARD, we love repression, when i say graphic depictions of violence it's not That Bad there's just some blood and gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 03:25:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20735459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sambumblebee/pseuds/sambumblebee
Summary: What was a demon if not the corrupted memory of an angel?





	sometimes // NFWMB

**Author's Note:**

> mildly inspired by hozier's NFWMB just because it fits. mary (@billmastersvevo on twitter), chloe (@thetartanangel), and grace (@finite_alright), i owe you my life, thank you all for helping me with this!!!

Sometimes, Crowley sat on top of the world.

Well. Not the world. The apartment building. He swung a leg over the edge and looked over the city spreading out beneath him. His wings unfurled blissfully in the open air, inky black, splattered with stars. He longed to leap off of the building and take flight, but demons were not supposed to want to fly. They were supposed to scuttle, to slither and hiss, to crawl up walls and creep through gutters, slip into ears and down throats. When he stowed his wings away, his shoulder blades ached with memory and longing. It was a heavy ache, a shadow cutting through sunlight, a piece of gravel in his shoe. This was his perch, his safe space, Crowley as a lanky, languid gargoyle in the soft morning light, sunglasses disappearing into ruffled russet hair, yellow eyes turned a gentle gold. Wind rustled his loosely open wings, and he sighed deeply, eyes closing.

A day after what should have been the end of the world, he breathed in, out, in, out, reminding his lungs that they were free, free, free. When he opened his eyes again, the sun had risen a few more inches, and the man who owned the bakery a few blocks down had begun to set up shop. The racket of the metal gate clattering sounded unnaturally loud at this hour. Already, the smell of freshly baked goods began to waft up from below. He longed to sink his teeth into a warm piece of bread, something Aziraphale would tease him for endlessly if he knew he was craving something so indulgent.

Oh, Aziraphale. Crowley smiled, remembering arms wrapped around him, mouths colliding, teeth on skin, hands tugging hair and caressing necks, nails digging into backs. His wings flared out slightly with the memory, and he couldn’t help but feel relief because if his body remembered, then he hadn’t been dreaming. The morning had passed in a haze of blankets and sleepy kisses and stumbling out of bed, his angel haloed in pale pillows and cream-colored sheets, gentle breaths escaping his open mouth. He hadn’t felt awake until he had found a plain black t-shirt and pajama pants crumpled in a drawer and made his way up here. His wings emerged through openings in the back of the shirt that certainly had not been there before, but Crowley had made no conscious effort to make them; he simply hadn't considered that shirts might need holes in them to accommodate wings, so it just worked. 

The city was a different beast where Aziraphale lived, a strange contorted version of the place he knew from sleepless nights in his own corner of the world. The moon still hung in the sky, a pale creature in a pale world with a backdrop of deep indigo fading to pink and orange and baby blue. It called to him, still. When Crowley had been someone else, the moon had been so young, and the stars had been a delicate painting, a loving signature from yours truly. He may love it here, with the complicated, not-quite-one-thing-not-quite-another humans and the speeding cars and the jagged mountains and an eternity’s worth of stories seeping into the soil, but the stars were always a forbidden escape, the place where his heart had remembered how to love. The stars were meant to belong to the heavens, but to Crowley, they were something else entirely, something that could never belong to anyone, something that should be treasured and respected, never tarnished with wars they could not comprehend. The violence of colliding suns and ancient gas clouds and unknowable black holes was too beautiful for that, too beautiful in a way that neither side could ever truly understand. He had spent so many hours, so many days, so many centuries staring up longingly at the stars that they were an old friend.

“Do you ever wonder,” he murmured, “about what would have happened to you, if everything had gone down the way it was meant to?”

The stars did not respond.

Crowley sighed. He stretched his wings out as far as they would go, relishing in the sensation for a moment before standing up and balancing on the ledge. The early morning wind was a blessing, a tender touch on weary feathers. With every breath, Crowley let his wings fall slightly lower, trying desperately to relax for the first time in thousands of years. Here he was, merely a day after the world had gotten a second chance. He wondered if, perhaps, he would, too. After last night, anything seemed possible. Then he looked down, and his heart skipped a beat. A fallen angel should not be surprised at their fear of heights, but it never failed to sting. A tear trailed down his cheek, unbidden, and he stifled a sob.

He remembered the last time he had tried to fly.

What was a demon if not the corrupted memory of an angel? A flashback was not a simple thought fluttering by, an idle butterfly, a carelessly scribbled Post-It note, no, a flashback was a steamroller, a colossal whirlpool, a black hole. Already, his limbs began to waver, eyes focusing and unfocusing as the past washed over him, riptide currents tugging, grasping, clawing, tearing into him. 

Crowley on the roof of a London apartment building was torn away and roughly shoved into Crowley on the original battlefield. Wings newly blackened, eyes newly nocturnal, heart newly broken. He had clawed his way up from the sulphurous pit where he fell, the ruined landscape sprawling out before him, the putrid scent of brimstone and charcoal and rot suffocating him. The war had taken the stars from him, and all he wanted was to get back to them. So, he spread his crumpled wings with crooked feathers, bloody scabs building where primaries had broken off, and flew. He should have flown, should have beaten his wings two or three times and lifted himself into the air, to freedom, to some semblance of a life lived hidden away in a far-off galaxy, nursing his wounds until he could muster up the strength to plead to the Almighty to reconsider.

Instead, his wings began to smolder. A strangled sound escaped him like a dying animal, and Crowley stumbled to the ground, falling downwards instead of rising to the heavens. Muscles spasmed, and he smelled his own flesh searing, causing him to retch. Crowley writhed helplessly in the mud and filth, extinguishing the flames with the gray-brown sludge, open wounds filling with grit and gravel, tears leaking from his eyes. The unspeakable pain from his attempt at flight was a wound that would never heal, not truly, because the thing that hurt was not the physical burns, the torn flesh, the bleeding gashes, but the knowledge that the stars were forbidden. This thing, this unreachable, unfathomable, inexpressible spread of stars and nebulas and dust and asteroids and supernovas, had been wrongfully claimed and marked as not for you, Crowley. Never for you. Instead, he was gifted scales and fangs, nocturnal eyes and a body meant for prowling close to the ground, because the stars were off limits, the sky was a holy place, consecrated ground, a high and mighty kingdom reserved for royalty and royalty only. When he opened his eyes again, a figure stood before him.

“You really thought you could escape that easily?”

In this moment, a halo was a death sentence. Impeccable armor in blinding white, violet eyes staring him down with celestial condescendence. An impossibly clean scythe hung at Gabriel’s side, reflecting a battered and broken version of Crowley. He could not say anything, the pain still filling his esophagus with acid and grief. He could only stare back and hope that the Archangel would have mercy, one way or another.

“Angels fly. Demons… do not. Looks like you learned that the hard way. Get up.”

He could not stand, so Gabriel did it for him, roughly yanking him to his feet by his frayed robes. He let out a strangled shout when the movement jolted his tattered wings, blood leaking out of him at the slightest motion. He prayed for the Archangel’s blade to be sharp, to be quick, to be merciful.

“Cat got your tongue?”

Crowley spat at him. Gabriel wiped the blood and saliva from his face, grimacing.

“See this?” The Archangel said, continuing as if nothing had happened, gesturing at the wasteland surrounding them. “This is what happens when you rebel. This is what you do, so you don’t get to fly.”

“Are you going to kill me?” The words felt like razor blades in his throat. Crowley tried not to vomit. His knees wobbled dangerously.

Gabriel looked at him calculatingly. “No. Not yet, anyway. There’s no point to a victory if there’s nobody left to run and report back. Go home. Tell them you lost.”

He began to stumble away, his energy failing him.

“And, demon?”

Crowley looked up with half-lidded eyes.

“Here’s a tip. Don’t try to fly again.”

His smile hurt more than his scythe ever could have.

Past Crowley had fallen, stood, fallen again, scrambling and crawling and slipping and sliding his way back to somewhere else, somewhere the angels could not sneer at him. Past Crowley had found those who asked questions, those who had gone astray, and found no friends, only revelry and rebels, filth and disdain, and learned to delight in the small mischiefs, adapt to the conditions, find small ways to channel bitterness into productivity, even if that meant only minorly inconveniencing the creations of the one who had cast him out.

Crowley nearly fell off the side of the building when he heard something bang behind him. Still shaking off the remnants of his memories, he whirled around, wings up and ready again, eyes wide, teeth bared, but it was just the door to the rooftop slamming shut, and there was Aziraphale, still half-asleep, wings rumpled, feet bare. Upon seeing Crowley’s stance, the pain clear and bright on his face and evident in his sharply angled limbs, the angel rushed over to him fretfully.

“Crowley!” When he reached Crowley, Aziraphale pulled him closer so he was further from the ledge and wrapped his wings around them both, enveloping them in a soft white cocoon. Crowley shook violently. The world turned into a kaleidoscope, twisting and turning as his soul spilled out of him. Aziraphale held him together with gentle kisses and hushed whispers, lowering him to the ground, arranging his wings so as not to bend any feathers. Crowley curled up on the concrete, his wings shuddering, remembering the flames and the mud and the excruciating pain of grit scraping fresh burns and blisters. He stewed in the pure and unrelenting emotion for what could have been hours, shivering until it ebbed away like the passing of a sudden summer storm. He opened his eyes and looked up at the angel. His head lay in Aziraphale’s lap, night-black wings carefully spread on either side of him, the angel’s white wings still covering both of them. Every individual feather felt like it had a thousand nerves quivering within, anxiously awaiting flight or fall. And then.

“Talk to me, my dear. What happened?”

“I don’t know if I can explain, I…”

“Take your time.”

Crowley took a deep breath. “Aziraphale?”

“Yes?”

“Can I try something?”

“Depends on what that is, my dear. Will it help you?”

“I hope so. Words don’t really work all that well for me right now.”

“Alright then.”

Crowley found Aziraphale’s hand and took it in his own, squeezing tightly. The memory of the fall, the fury, the fire, the failed flight, all flooded into his mind and then into Aziraphale’s, an unstoppable, unfiltered torrent of information and emotion. He felt Aziraphale’s soul take the raw memory like a punch to the gut, felt his pain echoed in his angel, mixed with a new horror, and a rush of unexpected anger.

This time, the memory was a tidal wave without warning, sweeping both of them up like two paper boats. In this twisted, repeated past, Aziraphale now stood beside him, pure angelic flame burning in his eyes, wings burning bright behind him, sword unsheathed. The angel shone in his celestial armor as Crowley swayed unsteadily. Gabriel stood at an arm’s length, holding Crowley by the shoulder unceremoniously, blood and muck dripping down into Crowley’s eyes. The angel took only a moment to drink in the surroundings, before taking action. 

He swung at Gabriel without warning, wielding the weapon deftly, with shocking skill and an undeniable familiarity. Where in Tadfield he had held the sword awkwardly, here it was an extension of his arm, and Crowley abruptly understood the difference between then and now. How Aziraphale did not truly believe he needed his sword then, how it was a useless accessory, a reminder of a war that he did not want to repeat, a barbaric hint at what could have been. Here, in this twisted memory, violence was the only option. This hit a celestial nerve, setting the angel and his sword on fire.

Memory Gabriel should have been a ghost, untouchable, but instead he held a hand up to defend himself, and Aziraphale did not slow his strike. He sliced through the Archangel’s hand like it was paper, his sword then embedding itself in the place where Gabriel’s shoulder met his neck. Blood flowed from the wounds, trickling down polished armor and leaking into the ground, mingling with mud and dust. Horrifyingly detached fingers disappeared into the sludge at Aziraphale’s feet. Before Crowley or Gabriel could react, Aziraphale wrenched the sword free, sizzling where flames made contact with flesh, and drove it through Gabriel’s chest, where his heart should have been. The false Gabriel in Crowley’s memory gurgled helplessly and fell to his knees, sliding in the mud. Aziraphale’s eyes burned white-hot and dangerous, unmistakably inhuman and indescribable, unfathomable, unreachable. Crowley stood frozen, memory-wings fractured and feeble, blood and filth coating him like a second skin.

This strange, distant, ethereal and cold and terrible Aziraphale turned back to him as Gabriel fell face-first. His eyes dimmed, his wings relaxed, and he lowered his bloody sword. He rushed to Crowley, cupping his face in his stained hands, and kissed him deeply. In this memory, Crowley was so weak, so weak, so weak, that all he could do was stand, barely, and weep.

Aziraphale wiped the tears from his eyes. “Crowley,” Aziraphale said fiercely, “I will never let them hurt you. Never.”

They tumbled back to earth, back to time, back to reality. The world came back into focus in jagged bursts, faltering steps, until Crowley became aware that they had not moved, that his head still lay in his angel’s lap, that his wings were healed, that his memory was still safely stowed away in the past. Angels, even the Fallen, were made of memories. It was all they could be - memory and emotion and fire, unfiltered, raw, pure. All it took was a wound too deep, a dip turned into a dive, and time slipped away like a fish through a grasping hand, memory becoming reality, becoming malleable, fickle, terrible. 

This time they shook together. The angel’s eyes still held the memory of white-hot fire, something that sent a thrill through Crowley’s heart. Even though he knew, logically, that Aziraphale couldn’t not understand him, after that memory, after exchanging hearts in a way that only an angel and a fallen angel could, something in him still screamed, I am unknowable. But when Crowley looked, truly looked at Aziraphale, he remembered the smell of burning paper, charred wood, melting candle wax, steam and smoke and salty tears, and felt that same fire burn in his own heart, racing and roaring to life. Aziraphale kissed the tears from Crowley’s face and gently lifted him to a sitting position. They sat huddled there for what felt like hours, wings folding over each other, faces pressed together, until the sun was well and fully up, and people milled about several stories below.

“My dear,” Aziraphale murmured against Crowley’s cheek. “May I?” He rests a hand on Crowley’s wing, experimentally running a hand over a feather.

“What?”

“I want to take care of you.”

“I… well…” Crowley was at a loss for words, so he simply nodded shakily. Aziraphale smiled softly. He repositioned himself and Crowley so that he was facing the demon’s back and could access his wings more easily.

He found himself going completely still, a deer in headlights. For the first time since he fell, someone else’s hand touched the curve at the top of his wing. Aziraphale’s fingers caressed the down beneath his coverts, and he went limp at the touch. Seeing his reaction, the angel smiled softly and continued, rubbing his thumb in circles. His fingers moved methodically from feather to feather, delicately rearranging crooked pinions and softly whispering apologetically when he had to pull a broken one loose. Crowley began to melt into Aziraphale’s touch, sighing deeply. Sometimes, he felt soft hands brush over scars. When this happened, Aziraphale would stop to trace them, massaging away eons’ worth of tension with his touch. The stars felt closer with Aziraphale here.

Aziraphale worked his way along both of Crowley’s wings, thorough and precise and loving. Then he returned to the place where back muscles attached to the base of his wings. He paused for a moment before using a miracle to take the shirt off, tracing the place where skin turned to stormy black feathers. Crowley could not stop the sharp gasp that escaped his mouth. To his disappointment, Aziraphale’s hand retreated.

“I’m sorry, should I stop?”

“No – don’t – don’t stop, please,” Crowley managed, trying not to sound desperate, his eyes half-focused, body alive with electricity.

Aziraphale’s hands returned, fingers dancing against skin and feathers, causing Crowley’s back to shiver and twist and his wings to flutter without his bidding. Everything was sun and skin and stars and soft suggestions of something more. His angel deftly massaged his back, the base of his wings, the nape of his neck, and then he leaned in and wrapped his arms around Crowley’s chest, fitting perfectly under his wings, head nuzzled into his back. Crowley felt Aziraphale’s lips on his skin and moaned softly.

“Angel… I… Ah…”

“Sorry, I can’t help myself,” Aziraphale said through a smile that Crowley could not see.

“Don’t apologize, you- oh-” He stopped talking, all of his attention centered on the places his body and Aziraphale’s made contact. For a blissful moment, his wings forgot the pain of falling and remembered the pleasure of an angel’s touch. One moment melted into another, and another, and another, the sun beating down on them as limbs collided, black feathers whispering across white, fingers intertwining, hair catching sunlight, eyes fluttering open and closed. They folded into one another, finding the places that they fit together, soaking up the sun and ignoring the grime on the concrete rooftop, lying together until the morning faded into afternoon.

\--

Later, Aziraphale sank into the couch like water into sand, his weight seeping into the leather cushions. His glasses perched low on his nose. He did not need them, but he rather liked the way they looked as he read his old first-edition copy of the Picture of Dorian Gray. He had read this book too many times to count, but every time he seemed to find something new. His books were old friends that he never tired of.

And yet.

Today the words blurred and melded together, taunting him, rearranging themselves until they became gibberish. No matter how hard he tried, he could not make sense of them, even though he knew every page by heart. Aziraphale abruptly snapped the book shut, then patted the cover gently, as if to apologize. He set it down on the little table by the sofa and let out a frustrated sigh. Even his thoughts ran from him now, skipping around, tiny birds flapping their wings and flitting about in his head. His chest felt tight, tight, tight, rubber bands expanding and contracting around his ribcage with every breath in and out.

Crowley found him with his head in his hands, breaths halting and frantic, tears threatening to escape from his eyes.

“Angel! What’s wrong? What happened?”

When the demon lay a hand on the angel’s shoulder, the air behind him warped and fractured, and white wings burst through the seams of his coat, tearing through reality and sending downy feathers like snow flurries throughout the room. Crowley had to duck out of the way, his own wings neatly materializing behind him instinctively. His eyes showed no signs of whites, only black and yellow, wide and afraid.

“I’m sorry, dear boy, I… I don’t know what came over me.” Aziraphale’s words came in bursts, stuttering and jolting, unstable. He finally looked up at Crowley, who crouched in front of him now, one hand resting on Aziraphale’s knee.

“Don’t apologize, you bastard, just talk to me.” When Aziraphale looked at him helplessly, Crowley scrambled to revise. “Or don’t! You don’t have to talk.”

Aziraphale squeezed Crowley’s hand on his thigh, afraid to open his mouth again, not knowing what might come out without his mind filtering the words from deep within his heart. He lifted his other hand to touch Crowley’s face. As he did so, he suddenly found himself in another time, flung violently from this moment into another.

Aziraphale had never been a knight in shining armor, not like Gabriel. But he had been a soldier, and a good one. Like any angel in the war at the beginning, he knew his duty, and stood tall and proud. Pride may be a sin, but not when it meant fighting for Heaven. And so he led his battalion into the great field, plain and infinite, a celestial middle-ground. His flaming sword was an extension of his arm, aching to bite its teeth into something other than training dummies and dulled-down swords. Aziraphale steeled himself against the oncoming wave. He tried to convince himself that the waves of fear and anger he felt from the rebels were based in pure and irredeemable evil. 

He charged, the angelic army following their leaders with unwavering resolve. He could not see himself from the outside, but he knew how he must’ve looked, his eyes blazing with brilliant holy fire, sword raised and flaming to match, armor flashing in the relentless sun, chin held high. When the two waves clashed, everything turned to clashing metal, roaring fire, hissing serpents, screaming dragons, flailing limbs. Aziraphale knew his power and let it loose, let his body overcome his mind, muscle memory triumphing over tumultuous thoughts. He hated how he relished the feeling of piercing through armor and flesh, how his sword seemed to delight in drinking up the dying breaths of those who met their fate at its blade, how easy it was to cut down soldier after soldier after soldier. He saw how they feared him, and something in him died every time the lights went out in their eyes. But he could not stop, because every time he thought about turning away, he saw her: Michael, the Archangel, sword in hand. She smiled as she brought down legions of rebels, bringing her closer and closer to Lucifer himself with every slice of her deadly weapon. If she saw the doubt brewing within him, he knew she would not hesitate to turn on him, too. So Aziraphale kept going, hacking away, charred scraps of leather and canvas and feathers and blood trailing behind him.

In the end, Michael wounded the leader of the rebels with her impossible sword and her razor-sharp gaze. When the blade pierced his side, the battlefield swallowed all sounds except for his sharp gasp and the ever-present flames devouring the dead. Everything ground to a halt, weapons dropping, knees giving out, lungs heaving. Aziraphale let his flaming sword clatter to the ground, and he, too, found himself falling with Lucifer. Not to hell, but to the scorched earth, mud seeping through his armor. He felt the air shifting around him as angels who hadn’t yet fallen fell, and ones who already had desperately clung to the earth or tried to flee. The ruined landscape cleared, bodies burning, the victors flying back home. And still Aziraphale knelt. The sword at his side had been extinguished, but it still gleamed, never quite satisfied. He never wanted to touch it again, never wanted to remember the bloodshed and the clanging steel and sparks. His eyes focused and unfocused, eventually settling on a distant interaction past all of the bodies and limbs and torn-up ground.

Gabriel stalked across the battlefield, eyes glinting. Michael met him at the center, her smile sharp and deadly. Aziraphale could not hear them, but he knew the set of Gabriel’s wings, knew the tilt of Michael’s head, and he knew that this was a commendation. This was how it was supposed to be. This was the divine plan.

Then Gabriel walked off, sweeping through the fallen one last time, his stride brisk and orderly, armor unrealistically clean, eyes glowing violet even from dozens of yards away.

Aziraphale knew that this was where he had forced himself to rise. This was where he had resolved to commit himself to spreading Light, to ensuring that everything went according to plan, so that he would never have to cut down another soul again. This was where he had sheathed his sword, spread his wings, miracled the blood and sludge and charcoal from his clothes, and taken flight. But this is not what happened now, in his festering memory.

Now, Aziraphale stood slowly and followed Gabriel with his eyes. He watched as the Archangel approached a dark and disheveled figure in the distance. Golden eyes met blue. And then everything fell apart. White wings exploded into flame, flesh searing, eyes melting, but before he could really, truly, fall, a hand yanked him upward, and the world faded to gray.

Aziraphale sat in the old leather couch once more, woefully unfallen, clean, safe. Tears stained his cheeks, and he felt Crowley’s hands cupped around his face, but could not move to reciprocate the gesture. His ears rang, and all he could hear was his heart beat, his stupid human heart, never meant to experience the amplified, treacherous, unpredictable emotions of an angel. It took a long time before his breathing slowed, heart rate calmed, sounds returned to his ears, eyes focused again. He felt thoroughly unhinged. Perhaps, after the turmoil of the day before - had it only been a day? - he had never truly been hinged, and only now did he truly see the wreckage, the splintered remains of his faith hacked away piece by piece over the millenia, roughly patched by false hope and desperate apologies, only to be blown to bits by the end of all things.

Now, he became aware that Crowley was speaking to him.

“...angel? Angel, say something, please, say something, anything, angel, anything at all -” The distress in Crowley’s voice nearly sent him back into a state of panic.

“Crowley. I. Did you… did you know?”

“Did I know what, angel? What are you talking about? What’s wrong?”

Aziraphale swallowed, trying to look Crowley in the eyes, but bile filled his throat, and he nearly got sick right then and there, still smelling the blood and burning bodies and the sickly sweet stench of fear, still feeling the mud and filth seeping into his skin, still hearing the hoarse and drawn-out screams. Finally, he managed to say, “Did you know what I did? All those years ago?”

Crowley’s eyes darkened briefly, and Aziraphale saw the flash of recognition. That memory belonged to both of them now, the memory of an Archangel’s cruel grasp, open scabs bleeding into feathers and dust, flightless wings hanging uselessly, half-opened and exhausted. No, they had not seen each other there, but Crowley knew. He knew the dangers of this Arrangement, he knew what it meant to be an angel and what it meant to be one who had fallen. And so, of course, he had always known. “In the war? I know you fought. You couldn’t not have fought, Aziraphale. I know that.”

Aziraphale gently removed Crowley’s hands from his face and clasped them within his own. “I didn’t want to fight.”

Something in Crowley’s voice shifted, and his eyes looked sad, more human - or perhaps more angel - than snake. “You’re an angel. And not a rebel angel, at that. You had to.”

“But I… I could have stopped. I should have fallen, I should have done something. I’m sorry.” His head felt so full that he thought he might explode, break into pieces like a ceramic vase, split open like a geode. Everything corroding, shattering, collapsing, as his memories threatened to envelope him again, to hurl him back and make him relive a twisted and terrible version of an already twisted and terrible moment. 

What does it mean to be an angel? What does it mean to be a demon? We are told that things should be black and white, but when we try to keep the unstoppable tides apart, the clean cut lines crumble and turn to dust, and everything swirls into a sea of charcoal gray. Angels were never good, and perhaps demons were never bad. Would a pure creature strike down the innocent? Would an evil one accept the fallen into their ranks? The trouble comes when we ask questions, when the answers don’t exist, or don’t make sense, when the skyscrapers tumble and Icarus flies too close to the sun.

Aziraphale remembered, now, the time that stuttered and stumbled after the War. He did not start the conflict, nor did he end it. He was not high ranking, nor was he low. But his heart hurt like he had held the sword that had hewn down the heads of every future herald of Hell. He remembered the stench of bleeding and burning, of mud wet with entrails, of metal and wind and rain, and steeled himself for the rest of eternity. This old warrior Aziraphale wordlessly hung up his sword. His body would never forget how to strike and parry, but he would not resort to that. Not again. No more pleading eyes, no more biting flames, no more hands cut from arms, wings flayed, backs turned to ribbons of red. 

This had been the beginning.

This had been, he thought, a turning point.

Now, he thought, they could finally return to the Divine Plan. When humanity began, they could be angels again, not violent beasts. When humanity began, they could guide it. There would be no more war, no more animalistic brutality, no more smiting, no more death and deafening screams.

“I thought I could change it,” Aziraphale said, nearly choking on the words. Every breath dragged through his lungs like sandpaper.

Crowley took Aziraphale’s face in his hands and made him look up. “I know, angel. But you couldn’t. Nobody could, that’s the trouble. Anyone who thought they could do anything to change anything was wrong. That’s why we are where we are now.”

Aziraphale melted into Crowley’s touch. “I should have fallen,” he said, knowing already what storms these words will unleash. And indeed, they do.

Snake eyes returned full force, and the room filled with tornadoes of paper pages pulled from old covers, whipping around the two of them as Crowley pulls Aziraphale to his feet, fists clenched around his lapel. 

“No,” snarled Crowley. “You do not get to say that! You do not get to say that in front of me, or, for that matter, ever. You do not deserve to fall, and even if you did, it doesn’t matter anymore, angel! None of it matters! It’s over! We’re - we’re on our own side, and - you can’t - you’ve been inside my head now, you know - you know what it’s like!”

He let Aziraphale down gently. The angel slackens, shoulders slumped, and his eyes begin to water. Crowley stood there, swaying, inches away, hands still hovering near Aziraphale’s chest. After a beat, he laid his hands on his shoulders, shaking slightly, and tries to speak again.

“And. We. We wouldn’t have. We wouldn’t have met, if we’d both fallen. So I - I’m glad. That this is the way things panned out.”

Crowley deflated. He wrapped his arms around Aziraphale, letting the angel lean his full weight into him.

“Angel,” he murmurs into Aziraphale’s shoulder, “will you let me in?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, come on. You need to let me in!” Crowley detaches himself from Aziraphale and looks into the angel’s eyes. “Please, Aziraphale. For me.”

Aziraphale sighed heavily, closing his eyes. Then he leaned his forehead against Crowley’s, and then they tumbled back into memory.

Earth had not been created yet, but if it had been, it would have been destroyed by this. Every time one light sword met another dark one, atoms ripped apart and fused again, still learning how to exist, how to play nice, how not to. Amongst all of the rippling air and flashing armor, the screeching of metal and gnashing of teeth, one demon and one angel remembered how it should have been. This was what did not happen. It did not matter, really, whether he could change the past or whether it would all stay the same, because this was what could have been, and it felt like mending an unmendable wound.

Crowley found himself broken again. His wings dragged behind him, fractured and dripping, feathers bent and twisted, bones poking out through the black mangled mess. He stumbled, fell, clawed his way back to standing. Instead of making his way through ditches and ruts to a place where he could hide and heal, however, he turned towards the chaos, scanning the battlefield until he found what he was looking for. Here she was, the Archangel Michael, white-knuckled hands clutching her greatsword, locked with the black blade of Lucifer. His eyes glinted with hellfire, mouth bared in a terrible grin, matched with Michael’s fierce smile. They danced, performing a poisonous tango, where the casualties were not stepped-on-toes but severed hands or heads as blades swung in unstoppable arcs. Unlucky demons and angels alike littered the ground around them, collateral damage of a star-crossed and deadly waltz.

As Crowley limped past soldiers engaged in duels of their own, he became aware of a flash of light coming from another side, far to the right of Michael and Lucifer. When he looked, he found his angel hacking through hordes of demons like stalks of grass with a reckless fervor. Aziraphale was a sight to see, indescribably beautiful and sickening, something ethereal and something somehow unholy. This Aziraphale was both of the past and of the future, the two versions impossibly in sync, two types of anger aligned in this strange moment. And then the moment broke, and Crowley saw where the true memory and the augmented one split. He felt where Aziraphale changed course, making his way towards Michael instead of the oncoming rush of the Forces of Darkness. Crowley’s stomach sank. He frantically picked up his infuriatingly slow pace, muscles spasming, blood staining the dust in his wake, wings like windless, weary sails hanging from his back.

“Aziraphale!”

Crowley tasted iron as he screamed the angel’s name as loud as he could, vocal cords straining. Aziraphale did not slow down.

The tides cleared for a split second. A window opened between the masses, and suddenly, Crowley stood before Michael and Lucifer, blades still locked together. And on the other side of them, there was his angel, armor splattered with blood and gore, eyes glowing with white-hot fire. 

What was an angel, if not a demon before the fall?

The stars were so close. Nobody ever looked up on that day, but they were so, so close, nebulas and galaxies spreading above them, tempting and glorious. In this frozen snapshot, Crowley allowed himself a half second to breathe them in, these new and incomparable creations. How could anyone look up at the stars and not be filled with wonder? He always marveled at their constant inconstance, how they were predictably unpredictable, knowable but unknowable, always paradoxical, always beautiful.  
And then he looked back, and each of Aziraphale’s eyes were suns. He could never escape their gravitational pull, and so he took a step forward, and another, and another, and then stepped between the dark sword and the light one.

Celestial steel bit into him, but Crowley did not flinch. Instead, he wrapped one hand around each blade. The swords sliced pierced him like paper, in one end and out the other, but more importantly, he drove their ends into the hearts of their opponents, through him and through them, blood and viscera mingling and dripping. Still, Crowley did not blink. He looked both Michael and Lucifer in the eyes, grimacing at them with shining teeth stained crimson.

The two immortal beings fell onto the weapons, flesh squelching sickeningly, crushing Crowley under their weight. As they wheezed and the life drained out of them, Crowley looked up to see Aziraphale, a hundred yards away, too far to intervene, too many bodies between him and his beloved, too lost in the current. His eyes were wide and clear, something ineffable and powerful in his gaze. Not quite horror, not quite gratitude. Something, perhaps, akin to grief, akin to love. Through the tangled limbs of the two bodies above him, swords still embedded deep within him and them, skewering them together, Crowley saw Aziraphale pause for a moment and then redouble his efforts to reach him.

Aziraphale’s legs moved as though through molten lead, or a riptide, every step dragging through flailing bodies and scorched and bloodied ground. As Michael and Lucifer forced Crowley to the ground, their eyes still met, still caught, and Aziraphale had the absurd thought that if he broke that contact, he might lose Crowley forever. This cruel memory, this chance at redoing everything, and still his demon fell, still, he hurt, torn apart, irreparably wounded, while Aziraphale struggled so far away to breach the gap. Aziraphale began to cut down the angels and demons alike once more, like hacking through the undergrowth in an overgrown forest, a deep and burning flame alight in his heart. His body nearly burst with energy, eyes turned white, mouth in a vicious snarl. Aziraphale was a roaring blaze, a forest fire, an unstoppable volcanic eruption, tectonic plates shifting at his command. He did not care for his well being, did not mind the teeth tearing at his arms, the fingers grasping at his armor, daggers opening him up and biting at him like wild animals.

Now, once again, it was Crowley’s turn to fall. He caught himself on his hands, swords wrenching through him, ripping apart his sides and back, muscles and skin tearing. Blood spurted out of his mouth, choking him, and now at last he felt the fire leaving him. His wings spasmed once, twice, and as his body gave out, a light flashed before him, a hand reached out, and then he was on his feet, lifted by glowing bloodstained hands.

Aziraphale stood before him, a matching hole in his abdomen where some demon or angel had made their mark, but he stood all the same, teeth bared, eyes ablaze, hands holding Crowley firmly but gently. Then they both toppled back to the ground, everything melting and fading away into pale light.

Slowly, the world fell back into place around them. Aziraphale and Crowley lay on the floor, wings half-opened and folded across each other, black and white overlapping. No blood, no charred earth, no gaping wounds, no anguished screams, no crossed swords.

“Hi,” Crowley murmured, voice soft, reaching a hand to trace the line of Aziraphale’s nose as his eyelids fluttered open. In response, Aziraphale cupped his hand around Crowley’s face. He leaned into the angel’s touch, sighing.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Aziraphale said sadly.

“I did, angel. And I’d do it again. Don’t you say another word about it.”

“Crowley, dear, I-”

“Shut up. You helped me, I returned the favor.”

“And I still have to make up for so much lost time, my love, I can’t repay you -”

Crowley sat up abruptly, Aziraphale following suite.

“You listen here, Aziraphale. We did not go through all of that for you to say that. You do not need to repay me for anything, ever, alright?”

Aziraphale nodded. Then he kissed Crowley once, deeply, and stood up, dusting himself off.

“Come on,” he said, a sparkle in his eye.

“Sorry?”

“I said, come on! We’re going up.” Aziraphale was already making his way towards the staircase. Crowley, absolutely lost, scrambled to his feet to follow him.

When they reached the roof, Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand and led him to the ledge. They both looked out at the city spreading out before them. The setting sun turned the buildings into paint swatches and pillars of light, orange and pink and yellows cut by deep blue-gray shadows, clouds dotting the sky turned to pastel cotton candy as they neared the horizon. The air felt silky smooth, no hint of brimstone or lighting-quick steel, all misty breeze and drifting leaves and trails from passing planes. A jackdaw flew over head, bright gray eyes appraising the two figures down below as it made its journey to some far-off nest. The bakery closed shop, a cat darted across the cobblestone street, and a bicyclist rang their bell at an oblivious pedestrian.

“Why did you bring me up here?” Crowley finally asked, looking at Aziraphale.

“I think,” Aziraphale said deliberately, “that we should fly.”

“What?” Immediately, Crowley retreated, wings folding tightly against his back, body stiffening. “Why? I can’t, you saw -”

“I did see, Crowley, which is why I think we should do it. How long has it been, my dear? Too long, I suspect. I’ll be here to protect you, of course, should you need it, and -”

“I don’t need protecting!” Crowley spat, though he knew it was cruel. Though he knew he didn’t mean it, the venom still dripped from his tongue. “I just don’t want to, what if… what if… I mean… What if people see?” He finished weakly, arms dropping to his sides.

Aziraphale gazed at Crowley for a long moment. Then he took both of Crowley’s hands in his own and said, “It’s alright, my love. I understand. Will you please just try? For me?”

Crowley gave in. “Fine. But if I go plummeting to the ground, it’s your fault.”

Aziraphale gave him a dirty look. Then he looked back out over the ledge and stepped up. “Are you ready?”

“Not really, but you aren’t exactly giving me a choice.”

“I’m not forcing you, Crowley.”

“Sorry. I know.”

Crowley took a deep breath. He stepped forward, his whole body electric, every feather quivering with anticipation. He edged away from Aziraphale to make space for his wings. They locked eyes one more time, and then, almost perfectly in unison, they leapt forward, flapped their wings, and flew.

This time, Crowley’s wings responded to the air around him perfectly, beating like his own heart, and, like his heart, he soared. The world was three-dimensional once more, and Crowley could not stop the full-bodied laugh from escaping him. As he rose into the sky above London, he once again met Aziraphale’s eyes. The angel flew beside him, and then, to Crowley’s utter shock, he performed a full somersault in the air. Crowley could not help himself. He mimicked the move, gangly limbs knocking together, and then shot upwards, muscles burning as he continued flying up and up and up and up, as high as he could go. Aziraphale followed close behind, smiling.

This high up, they could see the curve of the earth, every city street like a line traced on a map. The two of them stopped for a moment, hovering. Crowley reached out his hand, and Aziraphale took it. Then he kissed Aziraphale. Everything clicked in this moment, wings spread in the evening air, noses touching, hands intertwined. The sunset turned everything into molten gold.

Then gravity kicked in again, and they fell to earth together, still holding hands, until they both separated, laughing with the adrenaline of it, and slowed as they came closer to earth.

When they landed at last, Crowley fell into Aziraphale’s arms, breathing him in.

“Thank you, angel. For everything.”

“No, thank you, Crowley. For everything.”

And with that, the angel and the demon returned to the bookshop, wings overlapping like pages of a novel, each the other’s protector.


End file.
